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What’s this record doing on my deck? I have listened to Furtwängler’s own recordings of his overlong second symphony and have heard it performed live by Daniel Barenboim with the Berlin Philharmonic without walking out. The works spends three-quarters of an hour going nowhere.
Furtwängler composed it in Switzerland after fleeing Berlin in January 1945, abandoning his musicians to a desperate fate. The work propounds motifs of fate and destiny beloved of German composers from Schumann to Strauss, alternating massive ffffs and church-organ simulations, all the tricks of the orchestral trade. There are some tender woodwind strands in the third movement.
So why am I listening to the second symphony all over again? Because Furtwängler is a figure of limitless fascination to conductor buffs. Few have ever matched his ability to mould an orchestra to his vision, or his brilliance at fulfilling the precise text of a score while making it sound utterly different from everyone else. How did he do that? Furtwängler was a conductor of genius. He imagined he was a composer, among other human flaws.
I can admire the large structure of the work and the flow from one theme to the next. I am also intrigued by the odd line, here and there. But the whole is a muddle without much meaning. The Estonian National Symphony is an impressive ensemble and conductor Neeme Järvi has a high old time pretending he’s Furtwängler on a pair of wooden skis, hurtling to an indeterminate finish. I doubt I will bring myself to listen again.
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